How a Korean Perm Is Done: A Day at MASSTIGE Academy, Seoul

In short. At MASSTIGE HAIR Academy in Seoul a perm is taught one technique at a time, in seminars of one or two days. The teacher does a full perm on a live model, from diagnosis to styling, explaining every step, and then the students repeat it on their own models. I trained there twice in 2026: a restorative digital perm seminar in March and individual training in cold perm and root volume in August, both with Hong Jihoon, the academy's creative technical director.

How the training works

Korean academies don't run long general courses on perm. Each seminar is one technique: digital perm, root volume or cold perm, over one or two days. Basic hairdressing skills are assumed. The reasoning, as it was explained to me, is that a technique needs a full day of its own rather than a slot inside a longer programme.

The day follows the same pattern. Hong Jihoon takes a live model and does the whole perm while the group watches: diagnosis, test strand, choice of solution, winding, heat, neutralising, care and styling. He explains why each step is done, not only how. Then the students work on their own models.

The academy teaches on the same solutions and equipment it sells to hairdressers, so during the seminar you try the solutions by hand on different hair. And it teaches on Korean hair: nobody there claims expertise in Slavic hair, which is something I had to work out myself.

Teaching is in Korean. Both times I found and brought my own interpreter, and that was the hardest part of each trip.

March 2026: the restorative digital perm seminar

The March seminar was on restorative digital perm with Beati solutions. Three things struck me in the first hours: the speed of the work, the fact that a perm is usually done with four hands, and the number of extra tools, such as vaporisers for restoration. Restoration gets a lot of attention in Korea. Care products go on before the perm, between the stages and after it, as part of the procedure rather than an add-on on request.

At the start of the day I could not hold the rods properly. By the end I had permed a model. I also had the digital perm done on my own hair in Seoul that March.

The steps, as they are taught

1. Diagnosis and test strand. The hair is examined first: its history, how it behaves wet and dry, where it breaks, its porosity. Only then is the shape of the curl discussed. For every new client a test strand is wound at the lower back of the head to see how the hair takes the solution and the heat. Hong Jihoon's instruction to me was to check strand by strand, not just once.
2. Choice of solution. By the condition of the hair, not by habit. Which solutions the academy uses is in Korean Perm Solutions.
3. Winding. The hair is divided into strands and wound on rods. The wrap pattern, the tension and the rod diameter decide the wave. Korean salons avoid a clean vertical wrap and wind on the diagonal.
4. Heat. For a digital perm the rods are heated to 60-120 °C on the hair, with the setting matched to the hair and changed during the process while the stylist watches the curl. The machine itself is described in Digital Perm Machine.
5. Neutralising. The second solution fixes the shape. On the Korean solutions this step contains collagen.
6. Care and styling. The stylist styles the hair and explains how the wave will change over the first days.

August 2026: cold perm and root volume

In August I came back for individual training in cold perm and root volume on TENGRITY solutions. The class began with the students' own hair. The cold perm needs no machine, only thin rods and bands. Root volume is built on one carefully chosen line at the crown. Both are covered in detail in Korean Cold Perm and Korean Root Perm for Volume.

This was also when Hong Jihoon gave me the figure I now work with: Slavic hair is on average 20-30% finer than Korean hair, with a thinner cuticle. He called it a statistic, not a rule.

What I changed after Seoul

After August I changed three things in my own practice in Moscow: the way I neutralise, the solution I use and how I approach restoration. I also brought home the Korean habit of the honest refusal: a test strand on every new head, and a clear no when the hair won't take the procedure.

Some observations that stayed with me. In Korea a perm is a main service, not an add-on, and salons do several a day. Hong Jihoon's clients are mostly 20 to 35. New techniques appear about every six months. And a digital perm machine there is an ordinary tool, not a novelty.

The certificate

After the seminar the academy issues a numbered certificate. Mine is No. 344. It is not an education document; it confirms that you trained with a specific teacher in a specific technique.